Chapter II: The Survival of Pagan Deities (6)

Once upon a time a man was passing the night at the house of a friend whose household consisted of his wife and mother-in-law. About midnight some noise awakened him, and listening intently he made out the voices of the two women conversing together. What he heard terrified him, for they were planning to eat himself or his host, whichever proved the fatter. At once he perceived that his friend’s wife and mother-in-law were Striges, and knowing that there was no other means of escaping the danger that was threatening him, he determined to try to save himself by guile. The Striges advanced towards the sleeping men and took hold of their guest’s foot to see if it was heavy, and consequently fat and good for eating; he however, understanding their purpose, raised his foot of his own accord as they took it in their hands and weighed it, so that it felt to them as light as a feather, and they let it drop again disappointed. Then they took hold of the foot of the other man who was sleeping, and naturally found it very heavy. Delighted at the result of their investigation, they ripped open the wretched man’s breast, pulled out his liver and other parts, and threw them among the hot ashes on the hearth to cook. Then noticing that they had no wine, they flew to the wine-shop, took what they wanted and returned. But in the interval the guest got up, collected the flesh that was being cooked, stowed it away in his pouch, and put in its place on the hearth some animal’s dung. The Striges however ate up greedily what was on the hearth, complaining only that it was somewhat over-done. The next day the two friends rose and left the house; the victim of the previous night was very pale, but he did not bear the slightest wound or scar on his breast. He remarked to his companion that he felt excessively hungry, and the other gave him what had been cooked during the night, which he ate and found exceedingly invigorating; the blood mounted to his cheeks and he was perfectly sound again. Thereupon his friend told him what had happened during the night, and they went together and slew the Striges.

This story exhibits all the essential qualities of Striges. The pair of them are women, and one at least, the mother-in-law, is old; they choose the night for their depredations; they can assume the form of birds, for ‘they flew,’ it is said, to the wine-shop; and their taste for human flesh is the _motif_ of the story.

It must however be acknowledged that as the area of the Striges’ activities has become somewhat extended, so also has the ancient limitation of the term to old women become locally somewhat relaxed. In many parts of Greece a belief is held that certain infants are liable to a form of lycanthropy; and female infants so disposed are sometimes called Striges. A story from Tenos[486], narrated in several versions, concerns an infant princess who was a Strigla. Every day one of the king’s horses was found to have been killed and devoured in the night. The three princes, her brothers, therefore kept watch in turn; and it fell to the fortune of the youngest of them, owing to his courage and skill, to detect the malefactor. About midnight he heard a noise, and fired into the middle of a cloud that seemed to hang over the horses, thereby so wounding his sister that the mark observed on her next day betrayed her nightly doings. Not daring however to accuse her to his father, he fled from home with his mother to a place of safety, while the girl remained undisturbed in her voracity and consumed one by one all the people of the town.

But in other places where the same belief prevails, as we shall see later, these _enfants terribles_, who may be of either sex, are called not Striges but by some such name as ‘callicantzaros,’ ‘vrykolakas,’ or ‘gorgon’; and this variety of names is in itself a proof that, while the idea of infant cannibals is widespread, no exact verbal equivalent now exists, and each of the several names used is only requisitioned to supply the deficiency. A child can indeed enjoy the title of Strigla by courtesy; only an old woman can possess it of right.

Thus the old Graeco-Roman fear of Striges still remains little changed. The Church has repeatedly forbidden belief in them[487]; legislation has prohibited in times past the killing of them[488]. But the link of superstition between the past and the present is still unbroken; and witch-burning is an idea which in any secluded corner of Greece might still be put into effect[489].

§ 12. GORGONS.

The modern conception of the Gorgon (ἡ γοργόνα) or Gorgons (γοργόνες)--for popular belief seems to vary locally between recognising one or more such beings--is extremely complex. Of my own knowledge I can unfortunately contribute nothing new to what has been published by others concerning them; for though I have several times heard Gorgons mentioned, and always on further enquiry found them to be terrible demons who dwell in the sea, it has so chanced that I have been unable to get any more explicit information on the subject. The present section is therefore, so far as the facts are concerned, a compilation from the researches of others, especially of Prof. Polites of Athens University.

A Gorgon is represented as half woman, half fish. Rough sketches on the walls of small taverns and elsewhere may often be observed, depicting a woman with the tail of a fish, half emerging from the waves, and holding in one hand a ship, in the other an anchor; sometimes also she is armed with a breastplate[490]. Similar designs are also to be seen tattooed upon the arms or breasts of men of the lower classes, especially among the maritime population.

The Gorgons themselves are to be encountered in all parts of the sea; but their favourite resort, especially on Saturday nights, is reputed to be the Black Sea, where if one of them meets a ship, grasping the bows with her hand she asks, ‘Is king Alexander living?’ To this the sailors must reply ‘he lives and reigns,’ and may add ‘and he keeps the world at peace,’ or ‘and long life to you too!’; for then the awful and monstrous Gorgon in gladness at the tidings transforms herself into a beautiful maiden and calms the waves and sings melodiously to her lyre. If on the contrary the sailors make the mistake of saying that Alexander is dead, she either capsizes the ship with her own hand or by the wildness of her lamentations raises a storm from which there is no escape nor shelter[491]. The mention of Alexander the Great in these stories of the Gorgons, as also sometimes in connexion with the Nereids, is unimportant; it is not an instance of purely oral tradition, but has its source in the history of Alexander by Pseudocallisthenes[492], of which there exist paraphrases in the popular tongue. The interest of such fables lies in the association of beauty and melody as well as of horror with the Gorgons, and in the _rôle_ of marine deity which they play.

In general however it is upon the monstrous and terrifying aspect of the Gorgons that the common-folk seize, so that the name Gorgon is metaphorically applied to ill-favoured and malevolent women[493]. Thus in Rhodes it is used of any large fierce-looking virago[494]; in Cephalonia (where also the word Μέδουσα, Medusa, survives in the same sense) of any lady conspicuously ill-featured[495]. Allusion too has already been made to the case where a child possessed by a mania of bloodthirstiness is occasionally called a Gorgon[496].

But there is another and fresh aspect of the Gorgon’s nature suggested by the use of the word in Cythnos. There it is metaphorically applied to depraved women[497]; and this isolated usage is in accord with one description of the Gorgon which has come down from the middle ages. This description forms part of a poem entitled ‘The Physiologus[498]’ (written in the most debased ecclesiastical Greek and supposed to date from before the thirteenth century), which gives a fantastic account of the habits of many birds and beasts among which the Gorgon is included.

‘The Gorgon is a beast like unto a harlot; the hair of her head is all auburn; the ends thereof are as it were heads of snakes; and her body is bare and smooth, white as a dove, and her bosom is a woman’s with breasts fair to behold; but the look of her face brings death; whatsoever looks upon her falls down and dies. She dwells in the regions of the West. She knows all languages and the speech of wild beasts. When she desires a mate, she calls first to the lion; for fear of death he draws not near to her. Again she calls the dragon, but neither does he go; and even so all the beasts both small and great. She pipes sweetly and sings with charm beyond all; lastly she utters human voice: “Come, sate fleshly desire, ye men, of my beauty, and I of yours.” The men, knowing then their opportunity against her, lay snares that she may lose her pleasure; and stand afar off, that they may not see her, and raise their voice and cry and say unto her: “Dig a deep pit and put thy head therein, that we may not die and may come with thee.” She straightway then goes and makes a great hole and puts her head therein and leaves her body; from the waist downward it is seen naked; so she remains and awaits the pains of lewdness. The man goes from behind, cuts off her head, holds it face downward, and places it in a vessel, and if he meet dragon or lion or leopard, he shows the head, and the beasts die.’

These modern or mediaeval descriptions of the Gorgons, though they are by no means consistent one with another, offer four main aspects in which the modern Gorgon may be compared with the creatures of ancient mythology. Her face is terrible either in its surpassing loveliness or in its overwhelming hideousness. She possesses the gift of entrancing melody. She is voluptuous. She dwells in the sea.

The first aspect may be derived directly from the ancient conception of the Gorgons. The word Γοργώ itself is a name formed from the adjective γοργός and means simply ‘fierce’ or ‘terrible’ in look, without implying anything of beauty or the opposite; while of Medusa, the Gorgon _par excellence_, tradition relates that once she was a beautiful maiden beloved of Poseidon, and that it was only through the wrath of Athena that her hair was changed into writhing snakes and her loveliness lost in horror. Moreover in ancient works of art the representation of the Gorgon’s head varies from a type of cruel beauty to a grinning mask. But it is also possible that the idea of their beauty is due to a confusion of Gorgons with Sirens, from whom, as we shall see, certain traits have certainly been borrowed.

These traits are the two next aspects of the modern Gorgons which we have to consider, the sweetness of their singing and their voluptuousness. These were the essential qualities of the Sirens, and have undoubtedly been transferred to the Gorgons no less than to the Lamia of the Sea[499].

Possibly also from the same source comes the mixed shape, half woman and half fish, in which the Gorgon is now pourtrayed. The Sirens were indeed originally terrestrial, dwelling in a meadow near the sea, yet not venturing in the deep themselves, but luring men to shipwreck on the coast by the spell of their song; and an echo perhaps of this conception, though the Sirens themselves are no longer known, lives on in a folk-song which pictures the enchantment of a maiden’s love-song wafted to seafarers’ ears from off the shore: ‘Thereby a ship was passing with sails outspread. Sailors that hearken to that voice and look upon such beauty, forget their sails and forsake their oars; they cannot voyage any more; they know not how to set sail[500].’ But by the sixth century[501] the traditional habitat of the Sirens had changed. ‘The Sirens,’ says an anonymous work on monsters and great beasts, ‘are mermaids, who by their exceeding beauty and winning song ensnare mariners; from the head to the navel they are of human and maidenly form, but they have the scaly tails of fishes[502].’ This description establishes an unquestionable connexion between the Sirens and the modern Gorgons.

But the fourth aspect of the Gorgons on which I have to touch, their connexion with the sea, is not, I think, to be explained as another loan from the Sirens. On the contrary the Gorgons were it would seem deities of the sea, when the Sirens were still dwellers upon the shore; and it was their originally marine character which enabled them to absorb the qualities once attributed to the Sirens. Thus according to Hesiod[503] the three Gorgons were daughters of the sea-deities Phorcys and Ceto, and their home was at the western bound of Ocean. Further one of their number, Medusa, was loved by the sea-god Poseidon, and gave birth both to the horse Pegasus whose name may be a derivative of πήγη, ‘water-spring,’ and whose resort was certainly the fountain of Pirene[504], and also to Chrysaor whose bride was ‘Callirrhoe, daughter of far-famed Ocean.’ Whether this mythological problem is capable of solution in terms of natural phenomena[505] does not here concern us; but it is a straightforward and necessary inference from these genealogical data, that an early and intimate connexion existed between the Gorgons and the sea. And here art comes to the support of literature. In the National Museum of Athens are two vases of about the sixth century, depicting Gorgons in the company of dolphins. The first, an early Attic _amphora_[506] represents the three Gorgons, of whom Medusa appears headless, surrounded by a considerable number of them. The second, a _kylex_[507] with offset lip of the _Kleinmeister_ type, pourtrays a single Gorgon with a dolphin on either side. These artistic presentments furnish the strongest possible corroboration of Hesiodic lore, and justify the assertion that from the earliest times the Gorgons were deities of the sea. It was clearly then in virtue of their own marine character that they were able later to usurp also the place of the Sirens.

But the Sirens are not the only ancient beings who have contributed to the formation of the popular conception of modern Gorgons. In one story[508] the personality of Scylla is unmistakeable beneath the disguise of name. This fusion is the more natural in that Scylla was from the beginning[509] a monster of the sea, whose form, according to Vergil[510], terminated like that of latter-day Gorgons in a fish’s tail; a monster too fully as terrible in her own way as any Gorgon. The following extract from the story contains all that is pertinent.

‘So the lad departed and tramped on for twenty hours. Then he came to a village by the sea, and saw some men busy lading a boat with oil, and they were carrying on board each one a barrel. When he drew near to them, he said, “Can you carry but one barrel at a time, my good fellows? See how many I will carry.” So saying, he took a barrel on each shoulder, and placed them in the boat. Then said the captain to him, “Thank you, my lad” (for he was afraid of him), “come and have some food.” “No, thank you, captain,” he replied, “I do not want any. But when you are passing yonder straits, please take me along with you.” The captain was delighted to do so, for in the sea at that place there was a Gorgon, and from every boat that passed she took one man as toll and devoured him, or else swamped the whole boat. So they set out, and as they were going the captain said to the lad, “Take a turn at the tiller, my boy, that we may go and sleep, for we are tired.” Accordingly they went below--to sleep, so they pretended--and the lad remained at the helm. Suddenly the boat stopped. He was looking about on each side when he heard a voice behind him. He turned at once and saw a beautiful woman with golden hair, who said to him, “Give me my tribute.” “What tribute?” replied the lad. “The man whom I devour from each boat that passes.” “Give me your hand,” said the lad to her. Straightway without demur she gave it to him, and tried to pull him down into the sea. At this the lad grew angry. “Come up, you she-devil, come up here,” he cried, and dashed her upon the deck. Then he belaboured her soundly, and said to her: “Swear to me that you will never molest man again, or I will not let you go.” “I swear,” she said, “by my mother the sea and by my father Alexander, that I will molest none.” Then he threw her back into the sea.’

Apart from the description of the Gorgon in this story, as in others, as a ‘beautiful woman with golden hair,’ the tradition which has contributed chiefly to the invention of the episode is the ancient myth of Scylla and, we may perhaps add, of Charybdis; for here too the straits are the scene of alternative horrors, either the devouring of one man out of the crew or the sinking of the whole craft.

But in spite of the fusion of both Scylla and the Sirens with the Gorgons in the crucible of popular imagination, analysis of the complex modern conception still reveals two elements in the Gorgons’ nature which vindicate their claim to their ancient name, their association with the sea and the terror that they inspire.

§ 13. THE CENTAURS.

ἈΝΆΓΚΗ ΜΕΤᾺ ΤΟΥ͂ΤΟ ΤῸ ΤΩ͂Ν ἹΠΠΟΚΕΝΤΑΎΡΩΝ ΕἾΔΟΣ ἘΠΑΝΟΡΘΟΥ͂ΣΘΑΙ.

PLATO, _Phaedrus_, 7.

The Callicántzari (Καλλικάντζαροι) are the most monstrous of all the creatures of the popular imagination, and none are better known to the Greek-speaking world at large; for even where educated men have ceased to believe in them, they still figure in the stories told and retold to children with each recurring New Year’s Day; and, among the peasants, many reach manhood or womanhood without outgrowing their early fears of them.

The name Callicantzaros itself appears in many dialectic and widely differing forms, and there are also a multitude of local by-names. Of the former I shall treat later in discussing the origin of the word Callicantzaros, while the by-names, being for the most part descriptive of the appearance or qualities of these monsters, will be mentioned as occasion requires. But even where other local names are in common use, some form of the word Callicantzaros is almost always employed as well, or at least is understood.

As in the nomenclature, so too in the description of the Callicantzari, one locality differs very widely from another. And this cannot be merely a result of the wide distribution of the belief in them; for the Nereids certainly are equally widely known, and yet their appearance and habits are, broadly speaking, everywhere the same. The extraordinary divergences and even contradictions in different accounts of the Callicantzari demand some other explanation than that of casual variation. That explanation, as I shall show later, lies in their identity with the ancient Centaurs. But before I discuss their origin, I must attempt as general a description of their appearance and habits as the vast variation of local traditions permits. In revising this description I have had the advantage of consulting Prof. Polites’ new work on the traditions of modern Greece[511], from which I have learnt some new facts, and have obtained on several points confirmation from a new source of what I had myself heard or surmised. I take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to him.

In describing the Callicantzari, although the diversities of their outward form are almost endless, two main classes of them must be distinguished, because corresponding with that physical division there is also a marked difference in character. The two classes differ physically in stature, and, while all Callicantzari are essentially mischievous in character, the mischief wrought by the larger sort is often of a malicious and even deadly order, while the smaller sort are more frolicsome and harmless in their tricks.

The larger kind vary from the size of a man to that of a gigantic monster whose loins are on a level with the chimneypots. They are usually black in colour, and covered with a coat of shaggy hair, but a bald variety is also sometimes mentioned. Their heads and also their sexual organs are out of all proportion to the rest of their bodies. Their faces are black; their eyes glare red; they have the ears of goats or asses; from their huge mouths blood-red tongues loll out, flanked by ferocious tusks. Their bodies are in general very lean, so that in some districts the word Callicantzaros is applied metaphorically to a very lean man[512]; but a shorter and thickset variety also occurs. They have the arms and hands of monkeys, and their nails are as long again as their fingers and curved like the talons of a vulture. They are sometimes furnished with long thin tails. They have the legs of a goat or an ass, or sometimes one human leg and one of bestial form; or again both legs are of human shape, but the foot so distorted that the toes come where the heel should be[513]. Hence it is not surprising that they are often lame, but even so they are swift of foot and terrible in strength. ‘They devour their road at the pace of Pegasus,’ wrote Leo Allatius[514]; and at the present day several by-names bear witness to their speed. In Samos they are called Καλλισπούδηδες[515], ‘those who make good speed’; in Cyprus Πλανήταροι[516], ‘the wanderers’; in Athens they have the humorous title Κωλοβελόνηδες, formed from the proverbial expression βελόνια ἔχει ’στὸν κῶλο του, ‘he has needles in his buttocks,’ said of any one who cannot sit still, but is always on the move[517]. Their strength also has earned them one by-name, reported from Kardamýle in Maina, τὰ τσιλικρωτά, said to be formed from the Turkish _tselik_ (‘iron’), in the sense of ‘strong as iron[518].’

All or any of the features which I have mentioned may be found in the person of a single Callicantzaros; but it must be allowed also that no one of them is essential. For sometimes the Callicantzaros appears in ordinary human form without so much as a cloven hoof to distinguish him from ordinary mankind, or again completely in animal shape. In one place they are described as ἀγριάνθρωποι[519], savages but human in appearance, while in another they are ἄγρια τετράποδα[520], ‘savage quadrupeds.’

Yet in general the Callicantzari are neither wholly anthropomorphic nor wholly theriomorphic, but a blend of the two. In a story of some men at Athens who dressed themselves up as Callicantzari, it is said that they blacked their faces and covered themselves with feathers[521]. Again two grotesque and bestial clay statuettes from the Cabirium near Thebes and now in the National Museum at Athens, were identified by peasants as Callicantzari[522]; an identification I have also met with when questioning peasants about similar objects in local museums; in one case it was a Satyr and in another a Centaur which my guide identified as a Callicantzaros. On the whole I should say that the goat contributes more than any other animal to the popular conception of these monsters. Besides having the legs and the ears of goats, as was noted above, they are sometimes said to have their horns also; and in Chios their resemblance to goats is so clearly recognised that in one village they have earned the by-name of Κατσικᾶδες[523], which by formation should mean ‘men who have to do with goats (κατσίκια),’ though it has apparently been appropriated to the designation of beings who are in form half goat and half man. There are however districts, as we shall see later, in which some other animal than the goat forms the predominant element in the monstrous _ensemble_.

The smaller sort of Callicantzari is rarer than the large, but their distribution is at any rate wide. They are the predominant type in north-west Arcadia, in the district about Mount Parnassus, and at Oenoë[524] on the southern shore of the Black Sea. They are most often human in shape, but are mere pigmies, no taller than a child of five or six. They are usually black, like the larger sort, but are smooth and hairless. They are very commonly deformed, and in this respect the strange beasts on which they ride are like them. At Arachova[525], on the slopes of Parnassus, every one of them is said to have some physical defect. Some are lame; others squint; others have only one eye; others have their noses or mouths, hands or feet set all askew; and as a cavalcade of them passes by night through the village, one is to be seen mounted on a cock and his long thin legs trail on the ground as he rides; another has a horse no bigger than a small dog; another, the tiniest of them all, is perched on an enormous donkey’s back, and when he falls off cannot mount again; and others again ride strange unknown beasts, lame, one-eyed, or one-eared like their masters.

Callicantzari of this type are usually harmless to men. They play indeed the same boisterous pranks as their larger brethren, but perhaps owing to their insignificant size are an object of merriment rather than of fear. But, as I shall show later, there is reason to believe that they are not the original type of Callicantzari. It is only by a casual development of the superstition, that these grotesque hobgoblins have been locally substituted for the grim and gaunt monsters feared elsewhere. They form, as it were, a modern and expurgated edition of the larger sort of Callicantzari, to whom I now return.

The Callicantzari appear only during the δωδεκαήμερον or ‘period of twelve days’ between Christmas and Epiphany[526]. The rest of the year they live in the lower world, and occupy themselves in trying to gnaw through or cut down the great tree (or in other accounts the one or more columns) on which the world rests. Each Christmas they have nearly completed their task, when the time comes for their appearance in the upper world, and during their twelve days’ absence, the supports of the world are made whole again.

Even during their short visit to this world, they do not appear in the daytime. From dawn till sunset they hide themselves in dark and dank places--in caves or beneath mills--and there feed on such food as they can collect, worms, snakes, frogs, tortoises, and other unclean things. But at night they issue forth and run wildly to and fro, rending and crushing those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust mark their course. Now they break into some lonely mill, terrify and coerce the miller into showing them his store, bake for themselves cakes thereof, befoul with urine all that they cannot use, and are gone again. Now they pass through some hamlet, and woe to that house which is not prepared against their coming. By chimney and door alike they swarm in, and make havoc of the home; in sheer wanton mischief they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants half dead with fright or violence. Now it is a wine shop that they enter, bind the publican to his chair, gag him with dung, break open each cask in turn, drink their fill, and leave the wine running. Now they light upon some belated wayfarer, and make sport of him as their fancy leads them. Sometimes his fate is only to dance all night with the Callicantzari and to be let go at cockcrow unscathed; for these monsters despite their uncouth shape delight in dancing, and to that end often seek the company of the Nereids; but more often men are sorely torn and battered before they escape, and women are forcibly carried off to be the monsters’ wives. In some accounts they even make a meal of their human prey.

The fact that the activities of the Callicantzari are always limited to the night-time has given them a special claim to the name Παρωρίταις or Νυχτοπαρωρίταις[527], formed from πάρωρα, ‘the hour before cockcrow,’ for then it is that their excesses and depredations have reached their zenith; but the word cannot correctly be called a by-name of the Callicantzari, for it is also, if more rarely, applied to other nocturnal visitants.

The only redeeming qualities in these creatures’ characters, from the point of view of men who fall into their clutches, are their stupidity and their quarrelsomeness. They have indeed a chieftain who sometimes tries to marshal and to discipline them, and who is at least wise enough to warn them when the hour of their departure draws near. But in general ‘the Great Callicantzaros[528],’ as he is called, or ‘the lame demon[529],’ is too like the rest of them to be of much avail; and indeed his place is not at the head of the riotous mob where he might control them, but he limps along, a grotesque and usually ithyphallic figure, in the rear. Thus in the popular stories it often happens that either the Callicantzari go on quarrelling about the treatment of some man or the possession of some woman whom they have captured, or else their prisoner is shrewd enough to keep them amused, until cock-crow brings release. For at that sound (or, to be more precise, at the crowing of the third cock, who is black and more potent to scare away demons than the white and red cocks who precede him[530]) they vanish away, like all terrors of the night in ancient[531] as well as modern times, to their dark lairs.

The tales told by the peasants about the Callicantzari are extremely numerous, though there is a certain sameness about the main themes. Three types of story however are deserving of notice, to illustrate the character of the Callicantzari and the ways in which they may be outwitted and eluded.

The first type may be represented by a tale told to me in Scyros in explanation of the name of a cave some half-hour distant from the town. Both the cave itself and that part of the path which lies just below it are popularly called τοῦ καλλικαντζάρου τὸ ποδάρι, ‘the Callicantzaros’ foot.’ My enquiries concerning the name elicited the following story, which seems incidentally to explain how the Great Callicantzaros came to be lame.

‘Once upon the eve of Epiphany a man of Scyros was returning home from a mill late at night, driving his mule before him laden with two sacks of meal. When he had gone about half-way, he saw before him some Callicantzari in his path. Realising his danger, he at once got upon his mule and laid himself flat between the two sacks and covered himself up with a rug, so as to look like another sack of meal. Soon the Callicantzari were about his mule, and he held his breath and heard them saying, “Here is a pack on this side and a pack on that side, and the top-load in the middle, but where is the man?” So they ran back to the mill thinking that he had loitered behind; but they could not find him and came back after the mule, and looked again, and said, “Here is a pack on this side and a pack on that side, and the top-load in the middle, but where is the man?” So they ran on in front fearing that he had hasted on home before his mule. But when they could not find him, they returned again, and said as before, and went back a second time towards the mill. And thus it happened many times. Now while they were running to and fro, the mule was nearing home, and it so happened that when the beast stopped at the door of the man’s house, the Callicantzari were close on his track. The man therefore called quickly to his wife and she opened the door and he entered in safety, but the mule was left standing without. Then the Callicantzari saw how he had tricked them, and they knocked at the door in great anger. So the woman, fearing lest they would break in by force, promised to open to them on condition that they should first count for her the holes in her sieve. To this they agreed, and she let it down to them by a cord from a window. Straightway they set to work to count, and counted round and round the outermost circle and never got nearer to the middle; nor could they discover how this came to pass, but only counted more and more hurriedly, without advancing at all. Meanwhile dawn was breaking, and so soon as the neighbours perceived the Callicantzari, they hurried off to the priests and told them. The priests immediately set out with censers and sprinkling-vessels in their hands, to chase the Callicantzari away. Right through the town the monsters fled, spreading havoc in their path and hotly pursued by the priests. At last when they were clear of the town, one Callicantzaros began to lag behind, and by a great exertion the foremost priest came up to him and struck him on the hinder foot with his sprinkling vessel. At once the foot fell off, but the Callicantzaros fled away maimed though he was. And thus the spot came to be known as “the Callicantzaros’ foot.”’

This story consists of three episodes. The first, in which the driver of the mule outwits the Callicantzari by lying flat on the animal’s back and making himself look like a sack of meal, occurs time after time in the popular tales with hardly any variation; indeed it often forms in itself the _motif_ of a whole story, in which, as soon as the man reaches his home, the cock crows and the Callicantzari flee. The second episode in which the wife effects some delay by bargaining with the Callicantzari that they shall count the holes in a sieve, is also fairly common, but the difficulty which the monsters find, in every other version of which I know, is that they dare not pronounce the word ‘three,’ and so go on counting ‘one, two,’ ‘one, two’ till cock-crow[532]. The third episode in which the priests chase away the Callicantzari is not often found in current stories, but the belief that the ἁγιασμός or ‘hallowing’ which takes place on the morning of Epiphany is the signal for the final departure of the Callicantzari is firmly held throughout Greece. This ceremony consists primarily in ‘blessing the waters’--whether of the sea, of rivers, of village-wells, or, as at Athens, of the reservoir--by carrying a cross in procession to the appointed place and throwing it in; but in many districts also the priests afterwards fill vessels with the blest waters, and with these and their censers make a round of the village, sprinkling and purifying the people and their houses and cornfields and vineyards. The fear which the Callicantzari feel of this purification is embodied in some rough lines which they are supposed to chant as they disappear at Twelfth-night:

φύγετε, νὰ φύγουμε,
τ’ ἔφτασ’ ὁ τουρλόπαπας
μὲ τὴν ἁγι̯αστοῦρα του
καὶ μὲ τὴ βρεχτοῦρα του,
κι’ ἅγι̯ασε τὰ ῥέμματα
καὶ μᾶς ἐμαγάρισε[533].

Quick, begone! we must begone,
Here comes the pot-bellied priest,
With his censer in his hand
And his sprinkling-vessel too;
He has purified the streams
And he has polluted us.

In the actual tales however as told by the people the intervention of the priests is not a common episode. More often the story ends in a rescue effected by neighbours armed with firebrands, of which the Callicantzari go in mortal terror, or simply with the crowing of the black cock.

The second type of story deals with the adventures of a girl sent by her wicked stepmother to a mill during the dangerous Twelve Days, nominally to get some corn ground, but really in the hope that she will fall a prey to the Callicantzari. Having arrived at the mill the girl calls in vain to the miller to come and help unload her mule, and entering in search of him finds him bound to his chair or dead with fright and the Callicantzari standing about him. They at once seize the girl, and begin to quarrel which shall have her for his own. But the girl keeps her wits, and says that she will be the wife of the one who brings her the best bridal array. So they disperse in search of fine raiment and jewels. Meanwhile she sets to work to grind the corn, and each time a Callicantzaros returns with presents, she sends him on a fresh errand for something more. Finally the corn is all ground, and she quickly loads the mule with two sacks, one on either side, clothes herself in the gold and jewels which the Callicantzari have brought, mounts the mule and lies flat on the saddle covered over with a sack, and eluding the Callicantzari who pursue her, like the muleteer in the previous story, reaches home in safety.

The wicked stepmother seeing that her plans have miscarried and that her stepdaughter is now rich while her own daughter is poor, determines to send the latter the next evening to the mill. She too finds the mill occupied by the Callicantzari, but not being so shrewd as her half-sister either falls a victim to the lust of the monsters, or is killed and eaten by them, or, in one version[534], is stripped of her own clothes, dressed in the skin of her mule which the Callicantzari have killed and flayed, and sent home with a necklace of the mule’s entrails about her neck.

The third type of story, one which is known all over Greece, introduces us to the domestic circle of a Callicantzaros. A midwife is roused one night during the Twelve Days by a furious rapping at her door, and, imagining that the call is urgent, slips on her clothes in haste without enquiring who it is that needs her services, and stepping out of her door finds herself face to face either with an unmistakeable Callicantzaros who seizes her and carries her off, or else with a man unknown to her who subsequently proves to be a Callicantzaros[535]. On their way to his home he bids her see to it that the child with which his wife is about to present him be male; in that case he will reward her handsomely; but if a female child be born, he will devour the midwife. Arrived at the cave or house where the Callicantzaros dwells, the midwife goes about her task, and the Callicantzaros’ wife is soon delivered of a child; but to the midwife’s horror it is female. Her wits however do not desert her, and she quickly devises a scheme for her escape. Taking a candle, she warms it and fashions from the wax a model of the male organs and fastens it to the child. Then calling the Callicantzaros, she tells him that a fine male child is born and holds up the infant for him to see. Thereat he is content and bids her swaddle it. This done, she craves leave to go home, and the Callicantzaros, true to his word, rewards her with a sack of gold and lets her go.

The conclusion of the story varies. In some versions, the fraud is discovered before the midwife reaches her home, the Callicantzaros curses the gold which he has given her, and when she opens her sack she finds nothing but ashes. In others, she reaches home in safety with the gold and by magic means breaks the power of the Callicantzaros over his gift; and when he arrives at her door in hot pursuit, she has already taken all precautions against his entrance and lies secure and silent within.

The wife of the Callicantzaros here mentioned is in some stories pictured as being of the same monstrous species as himself, in others as an ordinary woman whom he has seized and carried off. But, apart from these stories in which she is a necessary _persona dramatis_, she has no hold upon the popular imagination. A feminine word, καλλικαντζαρίνα or καλλικαντζαροῦ, has been formed in this case just as the word νεραΐδης[536] has been formed as masculine of Nereid (νεράϊδα), and female Callicantzari are as rare and local as male Nereids. Their existence is assumed only as complementary to that of their mates.

Security from the Callicantzari is sought by many methods, some of them Christian in character, others magical or pagan. Foremost among Christian precautions is the custom of marking a cross in black upon the house-door on Christmas Eve; and the same emblem is sometimes painted upon the various jars and vessels in which food is kept to ensure them against befouling by the Callicantzari, and even upon the forehead of infants, especially if they are unbaptised, to prevent them from being stolen or strangled[537] by the monsters. If in spite of these precautions the inmates of any house are troubled by them, the burning of incense is accounted an effectual safeguard. For out-door use, if a man is unfortunate enough to encounter Callicantzari, an invocation of the Trinity or the recitation of three Paternosters is recommended.

But precautions of a more pagan character are often preferred to these or combined with them. Ordinary prudence demands that the fire be kept burning through all the Twelve Days, to prevent the Callicantzari entering by the chimney, and the usual custom is to set one huge log on end up the chimney, to go on burning for the whole period. In addition to this a fire is sometimes kept burning at night close by the house-door. Certain herbs also, such as ground-thistle[538], hyssop, and asparagus[539], may be suspended at the door or the chimney-place, as magical charms. If even then there is reason to suspect that Callicantzari are prowling round the house, the golden rule is to observe strict silence and, above all, not to answer any question asked from without the door; for it is commonly believed that the Callicantzari, like the Nereids, can deprive of speech any who have once talked with them. At the same time it is wise to make up the fire, throwing on either something which will crackle like salt or heather[540], or something which will smell strong, such as a bit of leather, an old shoe, wild-cherry wood[541], or ground-thistle; for the stench of these is as unbearable to the Callicantzari as that of incense.

Such at any rate is the current explanation of the purpose of these malodorous combustibles; but in view of the notorious gullibility of the Callicantzari I am tempted to surmise that both the crackling and the smell were originally intended to pacify them for a while with the delusive hope that a share of the Christmas pork, their favourite food, was being prepared for them. For certainly even now propitiatory presents to the Callicantzari are not unknown. At Portariá and other villages of Mount Pelion it is the custom to hang a rib or other bone from the pork inside the chimney ‘for the Callicantzari,’ but whether as a means of appeasement or of aversion the people seem no longer to know: in Samos however the first sweetmeats made at the New Year are placed in the chimney avowedly as food for the Callicantzari[542], and in Cyprus waffles and sausages are put in the same place as a farewell feast to them on the Eve of Epiphany[543]. Moreover in earlier times the custom of appeasing them with food was undoubtedly more widespread; for in places where, so far as I know, the custom itself no longer exists, a few lines supposed to be sung by the Callicantzari on the eve of their departure are still remembered, in which they ask for ‘a little bit of sausage, a morsel of waffle, that the Callicantzari may eat and depart to their own place[544].’

But propitiation of the Callicantzari, in spite of this evidence of offerings made to them, is certainly not now so much in vogue as precautions against them; and it is perhaps simpler to suppose that the choice of crackling or odorous fuel was originally prompted by the intention of conveying to the Callicantzari a plain warning that the fire within the house was burning briskly; for apart from the Christian means of defence--crosses, incense, invocations and the general purification on the morning of Epiphany--it may be said that the one thing which they really fear is fire. Everywhere it is held that so long as a good fire is kept burning on the hearth the Callicantzari cannot gain access to the house by their favourite entrance; and that the utmost they will venture is to vent their urine down the chimney in the hope of extinguishing the fire. For this reason the wood-ashes from the hearth, which are generally stored up and used in the washing of clothes, are during the Twelve Days left untouched, and after the purification at Epiphany are carried out of the house; but in some districts[545], though the ashes are not thought suitable for ordinary use, they are not thrown away as worthless impurities, but, owing I suppose to their contact with supernatural beings, are held to be endowed with magically fertilising properties and are sprinkled over the very same fields and gardens which the priests have sprinkled with holy water. Again there are not a few stories current[546] in which a Callicantzaros, attracted to some house at Christmas-tide by the smell of roasting pork, has been put to rout by having the hot joint or the spit on which it was turning thrust in his face. In one version also of the song which the Callicantzari are supposed to sing as they depart, ‘the pot-bellied priest with censer and sprinkling-vessel’ is accompanied by his wife carrying hot water to scald them[547]. In other stories again the rescue of a man from the clutches of Callicantzari is effected by his neighbours with fire-brands as their only weapons; and where such help cannot be obtained, a man may sometimes free himself merely by ejaculating ξύλα, κούτσουρα, δαυλιὰ καμμένα, ‘sticks, logs, and brands ablaze!’ for the very thought of fire will sometimes scare the monsters away.

Other safeguards are also mentioned; you are recommended for instance to keep a black cock in the house, or you may render the Callicantzaros harmless by binding him with a red thread or a straw rope[548]; but the latter method would in most cases be like putting salt on a bird’s tail.

Such, on a general view, are the monsters whose origin I now propose to examine; and the first step in the investigation must be to account for the extraordinary variations in shape exhibited by the Callicantzari in different districts.

I have already observed that the Callicantzari are sometimes conceived to be of ordinary human form, but that more commonly there is an admixture of something beast-like. Among the animals which are laid under contribution, first comes the he-goat, from which the Callicantzari borrow ears, horns, and legs. Almost equally common is a presentment of Callicantzari with the ears and the legs of an ass combined with a body in other respects human; or again the head of an ass, according to Pouqueville[549], may be combined with the body and legs of a man. In other districts again the wolf has once been a factor in the conception of Callicantzari. Thus in Messenia, in Cynouria (a district in the east of Laconia), and in parts of Crete[550] the Callicantzari are called also Λυκοκάντζαροι, in which the first half of the compound name is undoubtedly λύκος, ‘wolf.’ Similarly in some parts of Macedonia Callicantzari are often called simply ‘wolves’ (λύκοι), and both names are also applied metaphorically to any particularly ill-favoured man[551]. Resemblances to apes are also mentioned, particularly in the long, lean, hairy arms of the Callicantzari; and Pouqueville speaks also of their monkey-like tails[552]. Next from Phoeniciá in Epirus comes the suggestion that Callicantzari may resemble squirrels; for there they have the two by-names σκιορίσματα and καψιούρηδες[553], in which it is not hard to recognise the two ancient Greek names for the squirrel, σκίουρος and καμψίουρος. Concerning the local character of these I have no information; but it is fairly safe to surmise that they possess the power, commonly ascribed to the smaller sort of Callicantzari, of climbing with great dexterity the walls and roofs of houses in order to gain access by the chimney. Finally in Myconos, as noted above, the Callicantzari are described as ‘savage four-footed things’--a description which need not exclude some human attributes any more than it does in the savage four-footed Centaurs of ancient art, but implies it would seem at least a predominance of the bestial over the human element.

What then is the explanation of these wide divergences of type? The answer is really very simple and final. The Callicantzari were originally believed to possess the power, which many supernatural beings share, of transforming themselves at their pleasure into any shape. The shapes most commonly assumed differed in different districts, and gradually, as the belief in the metamorphosis of Callicantzari here, there, and almost everywhere was forgotten, what had once been the commonest form locally assumed by Callicantzari became in the several districts their fixed and only form.

The correctness of this explanation was first proved to me by information obtained from the best source for all manner of stories and traditions about the Callicantzari, the villages on Mount Pelion. There I was definitely told that the Callicantzari are believed to have the power of assuming any monstrous shape which they choose; and the accuracy of this statement is, I find, now confirmed by information obtained independently by Prof. Polites[554] from one of these same villages, Portariá; he adds that there the shapes most frequently affected by Callicantzari are those of women, bearded men, and he-goats. Further evidence of the same belief existing also in Cyprus is adduced by the same writer. ‘The Planetari (πλανήταροι),’ so runs the popular tradition which he quotes from a work which I have been unable to consult, ‘who are also called in some parts of Cyprus Callicantzari, come to the earth at Christmas and remain all the Twelve Days. They are seen by persons who are ἀλαφροστοίχει̯ωτοι[555] (i.e., to give the nearest equivalent, ‘fey’). Sometimes they appear as dogs, sometimes as hares, sometimes as donkeys or as camels, and often as bobbins. Men who are ‘fey’ stumble over them, and stoop down to pick them up, when suddenly the bobbin rolls along of its own accord and escapes them. Further on it turns into a donkey or camel and goes on its way. The man is deceived (by its appearance) and mounts it, and the donkey grows as tall as a mountain and throws the man down from a great height[556], and he returns home half-dead, and if he does not die outright, he will be an invalid all his life[557].’

Linguistic evidence is also forthcoming that the same belief in the metamorphosis of these monsters was once held both in Epirus and in Samos. The by-name σκιορίσματα, recorded from Phoeniciá, proves more than the squirrel-form of Callicantzari; it implies that that shape is not natural but assumed. From the ancient word σκίουρος, comes by natural formation an hypothetical verb σκιουρίζω, ‘I become a squirrel,’ and thence the existing substantive σκιούρισμα or σκιόρισμα (for this difference in vocalisation is negligible in modern Greek) meaning ‘that which has turned into a squirrel.’ Similarly in Samos the by-name κακανθρωπίσματα means ‘those that have turned into evil men.’ Whether the belief implied by these names is still alive in Epirus, I do not know; in Samos it has apparently died out, for the word κακανθρωπίσματα is popularly there interpreted to mean ‘those who do evil to men[558]’--a meaning which the formation really precludes.

Since then the belief that Callicantzari possess the power of metamorphosis either obtains now or has once obtained in places as far removed from one another as Phoeniciá in Epirus, Mount Pelion, Samos, and Cyprus, it is reasonable to conclude that this quality was in earlier times universally attributed to them, and therewith the whole problem of their multifarious presentments in different districts is at once solved.